Copyright: Philippe Cheng James Shapiro is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and author of the award-winning 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. His most recent book, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? explores the origins and various incarnations of the authorship controversy surrounding Shakespeare’s plays. The Literateur was fortunate enough to meet James in London, and emailed off … Continue reading Interview with James Shapiro

Emergence Fanny Howe Reality Street Press, June 2010, Paperback, 60pp, ISBN 978 1 874400 47 9 Price: £7.50 Dan Eltringham and Christopher Gatefield Boston-born Fanny Howe is read as an experimental poet; she is located on the far side of the tracks in English language poetry’s continuing divide between the establishment and progressive poetry worlds. Emergence may not be a collection of new poems but … Continue reading Emergence by Fanny Howe

Reality Hunger by David Shields Hamish Hamilton; Hardback; 240 pages; Price £17.99; ISBN 9780241144992 Dan Eltringham First, a series of radical pronouncements: narrative prose fiction has ‘never seemed less central to the culture’s sense of itself’; the ‘novel qua novel is a form of nostalgia’; and, more generally, ‘forms serve the culture; when they die, they die for a good reason: because they’re no longer … Continue reading Reality Hunger by David Shields

Ashes of the Amazon by Milton Hatoum Bloomsbury, Paperback; 274 pages, ISBN 9780747596721 Price £8.99 translated from the Portuguese by John Gledson Dan Eltringham Set in Manaus, capital of Brazil’s Amazona region, Ashes of the Amazon evokes place and milieu far removed from the contextual touchstones of European literary fiction, while being at once predominantly concerned with one of the European novel’s great themes: the … Continue reading Ashes of the Amazon by Milton Hatoum

Part 2 of our interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon. He talks to us about puns, pride vs poetry and being equated with Elvis Costello. Daniel Eltringham and Kit Toda TL: Despite having lived in America for over 20 years, your works are still full of references to Ireland and the Irish. Do you see yourself as an Irish poet? PM: Well, I mean, I … Continue reading Paul Muldoon Interview (Part 2)

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet PAUL MULDOON talks to us about his latest work ‘Wayside Shrines’, T.S.Eliot, the avant-garde and taking candy from strange clichés. Dan Eltringham and Kit Toda On the evidence of his poetry, Paul Muldoon is an intensely erudite man with a formidable intelligence. However, in person, he comes across as a charmingly ordinary and affable guy with something of the child about him … Continue reading Paul Muldoon Interview (Part 1)

A feature in which we present an exciting new writer whom you should keep an eye on and ask them a few questions. Questions by Dan Eltringham, poems copyright Michael McKimm. The Literateur is delighted to present up-and-coming poet Michael McKimm. Michael McKimm was born in Belfast in 1983 and grew up near the Giant’s Causeway. He graduated from the Warwick Writing Programme in 2004 … Continue reading Keep an eye on…Michael McKimm

Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahuri Bloomsbury, Paperback, 352pp.,ISBN 978-0747596592, Price: £7.99 Dan Eltringham Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri’s second collection of stories, follows the award-winning success of her novel The Namesake with more decoration, having recently scooped the 2009 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best Book. As such it needs to be taken as a representative of what can be achieved with a certain sort of literary fiction. … Continue reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri